Crimson Rain Redux
by Phoenixfire1389
Summary: now with real summary. A Guardian struggles with a new life tainted by memories and monsters out of nightmare. Old friends ponder new, disturbing hints of evil to come. And never count your enemies as dead until you've personally scattered the ashes.
1. And when you hit rock bottom

Phoenixfire: I've been re-reading the older chapters of Crimson Rain, and I… cringe. I know I can do so much better than this. Which is why I'm re-writing them. Sorry everyone who wanted a new chapter… please don't kill me? I really think you'll like the new version better! Please review and tell me what you think. If you hate it, I won't change the real story. I really think that part of my problem with getting out new updates was that the early chapters had no direction and no plot. By editing them, not only can I improve the quality, I'll also be able to get new chapters finished faster.

So, if you like the new version, tell me and this will go away and be incorporated into the story. If you don't… I'll probably just leave this up as an ongoing project of mine. It'll give me something to do over the summer…

Disclaimer: I still don't own Baten Kaitos. I don't own Mountain Dew, either. I don't want to own WalMart.Too much work...

Prologue: And when you hit rock bottom…

_It was late November, almost December. Close enough to December that the stores in the sleepy little backwater town were already decorated for Christmas. Even in the more remote areas, Christmas was a holiday to be exploited._

Huh. I've had this nightmare before, but this is definitely a new twist.

_Two teenage girls stalk out of a small store selling antiques, scented candles, and other oddities, arguing in raised voices. Both have brown hair and pale skin, although one has hazel eyes and the other brown. A certain sameness about their features suggests that they may be blood kin._

Yup, the whole floating spirit bit is new. For this particular event, anyway. Hoo boy, I am _not _looking forward to the next part…

_The one with the darker hair and the dark eyes seems to have their money. When she refuses vehemently to relinquish it, the hazel eyed younger sister forcibly grabs her purse. The wrenching motion knocks the older sister off balance, causing her to trip and crash into an elderly woman doing her shopping._

I'd forgotten that part. What a bitch Azil can be when she's not getting her way…

_With a hastily shouted apology, the older sister tears off after the younger, closing the distance by virtue of her longer legs._

Ah, the good old days when I was taller than Azil… and my hair was a normal color…

_They reach the end of the street. The younger sister chooses to dash across without looking for traffic, missing the large blue pickup truck that weaves drunkenly down the street, heading straight for her. With a look of sheer panic, the elder sister puts on an extra burst of speed. Knowing that she won't be able to grab or stop her sister in time, she leaps forward, knocking her sister out of the way…_

_And throwing herself in front of the truck instead._

Yeah, not the smartest thing I ever did…

_The truck catches her as she is stretched almost horizontal, throwing her over onto the hood. She rolls from there onto and over the windshield, her body going vertical as she flies off the roof of the car. One white sneaker catches on the back of the pickup, flipping her upside-down and smacking her headfirst into the pavement._

Ouch. That almost looked more painful than it felt.

_The pickup veers wildly, smacking into a telephone poll. There is dead silence for a few moments, and then the younger sister begins to scream._

_It takes about ten minutes for the paramedics and police to arrive. They go first to the driver of the pickup and the sister, checking for the extent of their injuries. On the older sister, one of them ties a tag._

_Things blur, and suddenly the tag is the focus of the entire scene. On its white surface, stamped in bright red, is the acronym D.O.A._

_Dead on Arrival._

…now that explains a lot…

_And suddenly, there was white. A white radiance that filled the murky red-gold of the cave with its brilliance. But it was not the gentle glow or pure holiness that most people associate with whitness and light. No, it was a harsh white light, a coldness, an emptiness that yet is not empty, that seethes with rage and hatred…_

Holy Hellfire, I am _not _reliving this _again!_

A slender, feminine fist smashed down on the dusty nightstand, in a square blank in the layer of dust where an object had rested at one point in the not-so-distant past. As if on cue, a buzzing reminiscent of a swarm of killer bees began to blare from somewhere in the vicinity of the fist, shattering the stillness of the morning. The fist continued to smash almost methodically, seeking to find and destroy the source of the noise. This went on for several moments, until the fist came into contact with a small glass box containing various pieces of jewelry, shattering it.

"Ouch, goddamnit!" snarled the owner of the fist, leaping out of her bed. Gingerly, she pulled glass shards out of her hand, the injuries healing almost before she removed them. She flicks the glass into the wastebin near her bed with a supremely pissed expression marring her face and causing her eyes – an extremely odd shade of golden yellow – to glint in the predawn light. Once she was certain all the glass was out of her hand, she leaned over – carefully, to make sure that she didn't come into contact with any more glass – and extracted a rather ugly white alarm clock, with the numbers displayed around the face in a minty green color. Instead of smashing it, as her previous actions would suggest she wanted to do, she calmly deactivated it and returned it to the patch of unobstructed wood, brushing a few pieces of glass out of the way first. She then leaned over very close to the clock, and said in a poisonously sweet voice,

"You are very lucky that buying a replacement would mean a trip to Walmart with my mother and something else for me to clean up at the unholy hour of six in the morning. Otherwise, I would smash you from here into next week."

The second hand of the clock continued its endless journey around the face of the clock, and the mechanical hum continued without change. Vexed, the teenager stalks into the bathroom and grabbed several paper towels. She then wasted the next ten minutes cleaning up the blood and glass. Luckily, none of the blood got onto her white carpet. Once done with this task, she returned to her bathroom and turned on the shower. She stuck a hand into the water, scowled, and turned the faucet farther to the left. After doing this, she stalked (carefully, in case she missed some of the glass) out of her room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. Upon arrival, she did a cursory check for other members of the household. Finding none, she opened the fridge, and grabbed a Mountain Dew. The girl dashed as quickly and silently as she could manage back to her bedroom and threw herself onto the bed, popping open the can with a satisfying sound of pressurized air being released. She proceeded to take a long swig, listening to the rhythmic, soothing sound of the shower.

"Life was much more fun when I was dead," she said ruefully, taking another sip, the anger visibly seeping out of her as she did so. In fact, it looked as if she might be able to handle the rest of her day with a reasonable amount of patience and tolerance…

When something with bat wings, brown and approximately the size of a small child flew past her window.

She blinked. Several times.

"Oh, you are kidding me…"

It flew past the other window on that side of her room.

"You are freakin' _kidding _me!"

She slammed the can of soda down on the nightstand, jumped out of bed, and opened the window, the one between the foot of her bed and her dresser, and stuck her head out. The creature was still flying around near her house.

"A Sharwa. It's Monday. It's a fu… freaking _Monday _morning, I have to go to _school _in forty-five minutes, and you're _already_ popping up?" The end came out as a shriek, drawing the monster's attention to her. She ducked out of sight for a moment, and came back up with a whip, various sharp and pointy things sticking out of the braided leather chord. She leaned her whole upper body out the window, ignoring the fact that her room was on the second story, and swung. The whip took out the creature's wings with a sickening crack, and a muttered incantation incinerated its body before it hits the ground, sprinkling the grass with ashes.

"Serves you…" she freezes, realizing that she must have been seen, if anyone was looking. She slams the window shut and looks out it with wide and frightened eyes, trying to detect movement, any movement at all…

Something rustled in the thorn bushes at the edge of her family's property. She froze for a moment, her hand clutching the whip convulsively…

And her youngest sister's cat, Smokey, darted out and made a beeline for the mudroom door, clearly spooked.

She sighed, the tension leaving her slender frame.

"Astarael Victoria Sanders, you're losing your touch," she sighed. "And quite possibly your mind. If you ever had one," she added. That was when she looked down, and noticed that her bloody whip had dripped on the aforementioned white carpet.

Her left eyebrow twitched. Her whole body, from her fists, which were clenched so tightly that the knuckles were turning white, to her waist-length blue hair, which faded to brown for the last foot and a half, shook. For a few moments, she could only stare at the crimson droplets gathering on the off-white carpet.

_Drip._

Coming back to her senses, she walked over to the bathroom and deposited her whip in the sink, cleaning of the blood as thoroughly as she could manage, with a false calm that was, in some ways, more frightening then her near-explosion mere moments before. Once that task was done, she literally jumped into her bed, shaking the whole thing and moving the mattress several inches to the left. She then grabbed one of her pillows, muffled her face with it, and proceeded to scream every foul word she had ever heard, some not even in her own language. Even with cross-cultural additions, the list was still rather short, a reflection of her more or less sheltered upbringing. She had to go through them all several times before her anger burned itself out.

Blearily, she pulled her head out of her pillow and looked at her clock.

6:24.

"I really hate Mondays," was all she could say to that.


	2. Life gives you a jackhammer

Phoenixfire: And another chapter of the redux!

...don't kill me, okay?

YamiPhoenixfire: (sigh) We don't own Baten Kaitos, Mountain Dew, or anything else in this chapter that's copywrighted. How can you tell? We're flat broke.

Chapter 1: …life gives you a jackhammer.

It was six fifty-one am…

And all was not quiet in the Sanders household.

"Mom, I have a volleyball game, so I'm going to need you to pick me up…"

"Late, late, late, laaaaaaaate! Bowl and cereal and glass and… where is my orange juice! Who drank the rest of my orange juice!"

"Are you done with the lunches yet? We're going to miss the bus!"

"Azil, if you drank my orange juice again, I'm going to _strangle _you!"

"What? Why do you think I drank your orange juice! For all you know, Rana drank it! Drink coffee or something instead!"

"Astra, Azil, stop fighting!" their mother, Deborah Sanders, snapped. "Astra, you can drink milk today, it's better for you anyway. It has all that nice calcium and… why do you smell like nail polish remover?"

"I spilled some this morning," she lied.

"Re… Astra, why are you wearing the chains on those pants?"

"Because I had a feeling that today was going to be an angry day," she replied, strangling her temper. She was wearing a loose-fitting black shirt that read, in red lettering, 'When I have trouble falling asleep at night, I count the buckles on my straightjacket', black sneakers, and a pair of baggy black pants, complete with zippers that ran up to the knee, and chains that connected the front pockets to the back pockets. The only jewelry she was wearing was a silver bird reminiscent of a phoenix on a black plastic string.

"I thought I told you when I bought you those pants…"

"Don't we have better things to argue about?" she asked, exasperated. As if on cue, her sisters filled the opening she had given them.

"Mom, I need you to remember to pick me up this time! I got stranded at school for…"

"Mom, could you hurry up with the lunches? We're going to miss the bus if you don't…"

"Arrg!" she screamed. "All of you leave me alone so I can finish up! Eat! Practice your instruments! Go away!" All three of them drifted off, knowing that it was only a temporary respite, and that they would all be lectured about it as soon as she had recovered from the onslaught.

_And it's times like this I thank whatever force chose to resurrect me for also giving me sisters,_ Astarael thought as she shoveled her cheerios into her mouth.

For a few moments, there were only the sounds of food being consumed and things being shoved into bags, before…

"Astarael… are you drinking _Mountain Dew _with your _cereal?_"

"Yes," she said simply, trying to decide if dumping the can over her cherioes would be worth getting grounded for the week over. Deciding that no, it was not, she then proceeded to chug the entire can as her mother watched instead. "Wow. I actually feel awake now…" …and being awake, her sugar-haze counteracting her temper and temporarily nulling both, she remembered that what she had done was still not a Good Idea. Yup, she was going to add to her already not-so-stellar day a Deborah Sanders Lecture of DOOM.

"Astra, breakfast is an important meal! You need to start off every day with a balanced breakfast, which soda is most certainly NOT part of…"

Astarael lapsed into a technique that she had perfected from years of her mother and various other adults talking _at_ her, rather than _to _her. She managed to tune out the conversation enough to add in the 'uh-huh's, 'yeah's and 'I understand, (insert proper title for adult currently addressing her)'s in the right places and by and large ignored what was being said. It was a habit she'd gotten out of when she'd gone on her two-year extended 'vacation' as a Guardian Spirit, but… no one's life hinged on whether or not she listened to her mother's long-winded lecture. Except possibly her own, and she knew she could both outwit and outrun her mother. (Especially the 'outrun' part. Her mother had started smoking again when they had moved into the house they were currently living in, although that was one of the things that she Was Not Supposed to Know.)

"We're going to miss the _bus!_" Azil pointed out, what little patience she possessed very nearly shot. Astarael looked down at the rest of the cereal in her bowl and decided that she could do without eating it. Although having her mother angry with her wasn't fun, it was more or less a constant. Having Azil angry at her was uncomfortable, and usually involved explosive flare-ups, followed by several weeks of not talking to each other. Luckily, having Azil angry at her was much, much rarer than having her mother angry at her, mainly because they interacted with each other infrequently. Utterly opposite interests, a two-year age gap, and the awkwardness over the accident was part of the reason for that. She'd also been more snappish lately, but Astarael blamed that on the all Honors/AP schedule that their mother had practically rammed down the poor kid's throat…

And now… to dash upstairs and brush her teeth. The Evil Glares were kind of…disturbing.

* * *

"I can't believe that you both missed the bus! Again!" Deborah Sanders screamed, slamming a fist against the steering wheel.

"I can't believe that you're too lazy to get our lunches done on time," Azil snapped in retort.

Astarael blinked, and Deborah Sander's mouth opened and closed in a manner that made her look rather like a beached fish.

"Give me your cell phone, Azil. You're grounded for the next two weeks. School, cross country, home, that's _it_," the middle aged woman snapped. Azil handed over her Razor phone with a rather sullen expression, but without a verbal complaint. Even she knew that she'd crossed the line this time. However, Astarael noticed, their mother hadn't barred her from going to her sport. Probably because she knew that Azil would ignore her if she did. Now, if she, Astarael, had said the same thing during fencing season, not only would her punishment probably have been harsher, she definitely wouldn't have been allowed to continue to fence.

This just proved what she had suspected for years: Azil was their mother's favorite daughter, despite the fact that she mouthed off almost constantly.

* * *

"I'll see you after school, honey," her mother said to her, one of those almost bipolar flippings of her mood that changed her into Adoring Mother mode.

"See you too, Mom!" she replied with a smile and a wave. Azil said nothing and merely rushed off to wherever she went in the mornings. Probably her locker first, but after that and before class started… who knew?

There were only three minutes before the warning bell went off, according to the clock in the front hallway of the school. If she didn't visit her own locker, that would leave her with enough time to get to the vending machines and get herself another Mountain Dew before they locked, as long as she didn't get held up by anything before she got there…

"Heeey, Astra!" A boy with bleached blonde hair, eyes that were almost that cheesy fake shade of blue that you can only get with contacts, glasses and clothing that looked like it came right out of _Queer Eye for the Straight Guy_ was running over to her.

Oh, fun. Just what she needed to make her morning complete. A daily dose of Robert Dixion. "I'm still not talking to you."

He pouted. "Are you still mad about the yearbook thing?"

"Little life lesson for you: Writing 'Good luck getting laid!' in a girl's yearbook is a great way to make sure that she never wants to interact with you ever again. And that was _before _my parents saw it."

Ah, Robert Dixion. She had dated him, briefly, in the spring of her junior year. His own annoying habits and clinginess, coupled with the massive amount of remedial work that she had been required to plough through just so she could graduate on time with the rest of her class had killed their relationship rather nicely. However, he just didn't seem to get the fact that when she had said 'it's over', she had _meant _it, not 'if you stalk me long enough, I might go out with you again just to make you lay off.'

"I said I was sorry!"

"Like I believe it." There were now two minutes before the warning bell rang, and she would need all five of those minutes to get from the vending machines to her first class if she didn't want to make a mad dash. And this waste of the air he was breathing was interfering with her daily 'Girl Gets Mountain Dew' ritual.

_Dear God, I promise I'll never, ever date a guy on the rebound again! Just pleeeeeeeeease make him leave me alone before I punch his face in! Which would be bad, because if anyone ever checks my purse I'll be expelled!_

_Rebound…_

_You, Astarael Victoria Sanders, are a pathetic human being. There can't be a rebound if there was never a relationship to begin with. And there wasn't one. And now he's probably happily married to Xelha, and they'll have hordes of blue-haired children, and maybe they'll name one of the girls after you. They deserve to be happy._

_And you don't?_

She shoved that annoying, discordant little thought into the dark vortex at the bottom of her brain where all the other inappropriate little thoughts that occasionally flittered through her head went. However, it wasn't a very effective containment system, and occasionally a thought that she had disposed of would float back into the stream of consciousness to plague her. The kill/maim/strangle/castrate Rob thought seemed to be especially good at this.

"Astra…"

She glared straight at him, and he shrank back a step. Yellow eyes, she had discovered, were especially good for intimidation. They smoldered with rage in a way that normal-colored eyes didn't convey half so well. She had grown rather fond of the new color for situations like this.

"The only reason you apologized to me in the first place was because I told you that my parents saw it. Do I need to remind you that I asked you, specifically, to not write anything vulgar in my yearbook? It was a very simple request, Rob. A five year old could have understood it. But for some bizarre reason, it seems that it was beyond your level of comprehension. Which makes me wonder, is there anything that goes through your brain that _isn't _a vulgar thought? Anything at all?" She mentally clamped down on the rest of her rant. It was a Monday morning, too early in the day and the week to make a scene. If she did, it would follow her around for the rest of the week, and she had better things to do with her time than hear about how she had given Rob a verbal smackdown and be glared at and badmouthed by his friends. If she had to, better to do it on a Friday, so that people would have a chance to talk the subject to death before she had to deal with it.

"You don't have to be so harsh, Astra," he said, and she could only stare at him in disbelief. Harsh? That was harsh? Andblatantly implying thatsomeone wasa slut in their yearbook wasn't 'harsh'? Talking about how his current girlfriend was an idiot and probably had STD's wasn't 'harsh'? Mentioning offhand that he was only interested in a relationship with this new girl as someone to fool around with wasn't 'harsh'? Interesting, how as soon as negative statements came back to him, other people were 'harsh', while when he said things that were just as hurtful, if not more so, he was merely, 'being honest'. Just then, as she wasopening her mouth to redefine his defination of 'harsh',the merciful bell chose to ring, giving her a valid reason to flee besides 'your presence inspires me to acts of violence'.

The sad thing was, she had been friends with Rob her freshman year, before the accident. At the very start of the fencing season (the only part she had been part of) they had hung around together waiting for practice to start, talking about video games and joking around. He had been rather nice to her then. She didn't remember his sense of humor being as coarse or objectionable as it was now, or maybe the vulgar jokes and joking or possibly not joking racial slurs had faded out of prominence during her two year break from her life as a Guardian Spirit, leaving behind only the more pleasant things. He had been fun to hang around back then, and not too bad looking, either. It was part of the reason she had agreed to go out with him. He was such a contrast from…

No, she wasn't thinking about him anymore. She'd done enough mental damage to herself already.

She was thinking about whether or not it was worth being late to her first class just for another bottle of Mountain Dew.

Of course, it wasn't really much of a contest. Her first class was study hall, and she didn't need to be on time for that. However, she _did _need her daily dose of caffeine to get through the rest of the day, so to the vending machines it was.

* * *

Somewhere very far away from that rural high school attended almost exclusively by people whose parents commuted into New York City to work, a blue haired man started out of a sound sleep. The woman sitting on the other side of the bed jerked back her hand, clearly surprised.

"Kalas! I was just about to wake you up! You startled me," she said, leaning back from him. Her blonde hair caught the early morning light, making it look like a halo of soft gold.

"Sorry, Xelha. Just a weird dream, that's all," he said, sitting up and blinking blearily. The details were already starting to meld and fade away. The only thing he could really remember was a familiar voice cutting through the chaos…

"_Somebody help me!"_

The voice of the girl who had been his Guardian Spirit, Astarael.

"Do you remember anything about it?"

"No, not really," he said, choosing not to trouble her with something that was probably nothing important anyway. Astarael was back in her own world which was, according to her, rather peaceful. At least, that the part that she lived in was rather peaceful. And they had their own problems… "How much longer do you think it'll take Mizuti to get to Komo Mai?"

"Probably another day or so. She said she'd be here two days ago in the letter, but with her sense of direction…"

Kalas nodded, knowing that their little friend had probably taken 'just a little wrong turn' somewhere along the way. They could probably wait another few days, the problem wasn't pressing, just… oddly disturbing.

"So… got anything you want to do today?"

"Um… I'd really like to look through some of the books that the academy of magic has," Xelha said with a weak smile, knowing that Kalas would find this to be rather boring. "And we could probably take a little trip to the Holoholo jungle later today," she added, knowing that he'd appreciate the physical activity and the chance to pound down a couple of monsters.

"Sounds like a plan," Kalas agreed.


	3. Digging that hole deeper

Phoenixfire: I... Live!

YamiPhoenixfire: Don't own Baten Kaitos, don't own Mountain Dew, and I don't have anything amusing to say today. Start the story already!

* * *

Chapter 2: Digging that hole deeper…

* * *

School Starts: 7:50am. 

First period: Study Hall

Second Period: American Literature, Honors (Senior level class. Last five of twenty credits for graduation)

Third Period: Biology, College Prep (Junior level class. Last five of fifteen credits for graduation)

Fourth period: Gourmet Cooking (Sophomore class and up. Two and a half out of five credits for practical arts requirement)

Fifth Period: American Government, College Prep (Junior level class. Last five out of fifteen credits for graduation)

Sixth Period: Lunch…

* * *

"Robert Dixion is the most infuriating waste of breath on this planet," Astarael snarled, slamming her books on the lunch table so hard that she almost upset the drink of the girl sitting across from her. "And if I _ever_ find the person who stuck him in my gourmet class, I'll chop them into bite-size pieces, and…" 

"Stalker troubles?" asked the other girl. She was brown-haired and brown eyed, much as Astarael had been before her… 'coma', and about two inches taller. She was somewhat stockier than Astarael, but not overweight. It was more like the difference between 'this girl looks like she'll shatter if you knock her over' and 'this girl actually has some meat on her'. Today their clothing was a study in contrasts, whereas Astarael had dressed in black and red, the other had worn a white blouse, dark blue cami, and pale denim jeans.

Her name was Selih Adnama, and she'd been Astarael's best friend since seventh grade

"I do not have a stalker, I have an obsessive ex boyfriend who won't leave me alone. Stalkers are those creepy middle aged men who follow you around for no reason," Astarael retorted, dropping into her seat and banging her head against the table. "To be a stalker, you have to be creepy. Rob's just annoying."

"Uh-huh," Selih said, taking another sip of her chocolate milk, her tone clearly saying that Astarael was in denial. Astarael took another swig of her Mountain Dew Code Red and glared. "So, what did he do today?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yes I do."

"I don't want to tell you." And she didn't. She didn't want to tell Selih about how she had spent most of fourth period elaborating on a creative excuse as to why she couldn't go to a concert with Rob next Friday as 'just a friend'. She didn't know why she couldn't tell him 'no' straight out. She didn't like him anymore, she wasn't even sure if they were still friends. It was just that continually shooting him down felt like... well, it felt like kicking a puppy. Rob was just so... harmless-looking. _And this is why you ended up going out with him in the first place! Have we ever heard of the word 'assertive'? Just say 'no'. You don't have any problem saying it to anyone else. _Okay, and maybe she still had some leftover guilt about allowing herself to be sweet-talked into their former relationship in the first place. But still, the class was a semester long, and unless she wanted to be miserable until Feburary, she was going to have to find a way to sort this out...

"Has anyone ever told you that drinking as much soda as you do is bad for your health?" Selih asked in an attempt to change the subject, eyeing what she knew was probably at least her friend's second caffeine fix for the day with a slightly nauseated expression. Selih had no love for any carbonated beverage.

"So is throwing yourself in front of a pickup truck," Astarael pointed out, "And I seem to have survived that just fine. So, the way I figure, I should take advantage of my new, miraculous healing abilities for as long as they last."

"Yeah, but do you think you'll get another deal to come back to life if you die of something as ignominious as caffeine poisoning?" Selih countered. Astarael winced. Selih was her best friend, so she'd been completely honest (well, almost completely honest, she'd left out certain humiliating details like managing to develop attachments that she knew full well would not end happily) with her about what had happened while she was in that coma. Sometimes, she almost regretted it, like now. But at the same time, it was nice having at least one person who she could talk to, one person who at least tried to the best of her ability to understand.

"Who says I'd want another one?" She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as she saw Selih's shocked expression. "I don't mean that I want to die again! I just mean that everyone dies sometime, and I have no desire to spend the last fifteen or so years of my life hooked up to a feeding tube in some nursing home where nobody visits me. I'd rather die while I'm young, borderline pretty, and still able to go to the bathroom by myself."

"Well, nobody wants to live like that!" Selih said with a weak laugh. "And you're more than 'borderline pretty, don't put yourself down. Just don't keep pushing yourself this hard! You're not going to be old for a while yet. Have you been sleeping at all lately? You're starting to look like a raccoon."

Astarael knew the answer to that was a resounding 'no', since she had been having more monster troubles and nightmares lately, and decided to change the subject. "So, how are the books in AP? Between all your schoolwork, color guard, and the traveling choir that you joined, I hardly see you these days."

Selih groaned and banged her head against the table. "I. Hate. Hemmingway," she groaned. "Everything's so _depressing_, the underlying message of everything that he writes seems to be that there's just no point to anything…" This sparked off a long and somewhat complicated conversation about literature that rather quickly deviated into books that they read for pleasure, as they both agreed that the book choices that they were given in school were rather… dry. There was only so much that they could say about them after having beaten each and every one with the symbolism stick for several weeks on end. They also ignored both the subtle and blatant looks that people would give them as they passed their table. Their discussion ended when the bell rang, and they had to go off to different classes.

* * *

Seventh Period: Algebra II, College Prep (Junior level class. Last five out of fifteen credits for graduation) 

Eighth Period: Health (Graduation Requirement: One year of gym/health for every year in attendance at school)

Ninth Period: Latin II, College Prep (Usually Sophomore level class. Last five out of ten credits for graduation.)

School Ends: 2:26 pm.

* * *

When she collapsed in her seat at the very back of the bus, it was with a sigh of relief. She loathed school. It wasn't that her classes were hard, they were just so mind-numbingly boring that she often welcomed whatever distractions came her way, even if they involved an impromptu monster hunt. Of course, eventually, she was going to get herself caught. Someone would see a flash of yellow beneath that mask she wore to cover her face and distinctive eyes, or the hat she wore would be knocked off, spilling blue-brown hair for the world to see, and that would be the end of that. But until then, the variation was almost nice. She unzipped the side pocket of her purse, safely protected from her whip where she kept her 'goodies', her fingers lingering over her iPod for a few moments before pulling out her book. Once upon a time, she would have taken out the thing, plugged herself in and lost herself to her music and her book, but these days she couldn't afford to disconnect herself so thoroughly from reality in such a public setting. Come to think of it, there were a lot of things she couldn't afford to do anymore. Like sleep for more than four hours at a stretch. She really missed being able to do that. 

The reek of something like cigarette smoke but more foul alerted her to the fact that she had company before some hulking, overweight boy that she didn't recognize tossed her backpack out of the seat across from her and sat down like he owned the place. She briefly weighted the option of picking a fight with him over the option of being able to get through the next thirty minutes with as little hassle as possible and wearily chose the latter. Last year, she would have objected noisily, but last year Alys and Kala had still been riding the bus with her, and between the three of them they could have routed the Stoner Loser. This year Kala was at the community college and Alys was upstate at a small liberal arts school and she usually sat across from a mild-mannered boy named Kevin that she knew from middle school but never really talked to outside of "Hello," and "Have a nice day." So the fact that there was a drug-scented stranger sitting across from her didn't bother her that much. As long as he left her alone.

"You got a name, freakshow?" he asked her as the bus started to fill up.

_Pfeh, like the Druggie Wonder has the right to call me that… _"Do you?" she retorted out loud, trying to ignore him in favor of her book, but he had a really annoying, nasal voice that drilled through her skull like a bore. It was almost impossible to ignore him.

"I'm Luke Summers, sophomore. You've probably heard of me."

"Sorry, can't say I have," she replied, turning pointedly away and staring out the window. _Idiot, idiot, idiot. _Most of her friends hated freshmen. All in all, she found immature sophomores to be more annoying. Most freshmen were a little scared of going to a high school that was (in most cases) three times the size of the school that they'd come from. She found that there were a lot of sophomores that became insufferably cocky after surviving their first year, and they were usually the ones who played the cruelest jokes on the lowest class. Of course, nothing could quite top the Cocksure Slackaholic Senior, but still…

The boy snorted, looking slightly put out, but his annoying bravado was back in an eyeblink. "You must be a freshman then."

"Senior," she replied icily. Why couldn't he pick up on her body language? Was he one of those idiots like Rob that practically needed a sign with neon flashing letters before he could take a hint, or did he just not care?

"Sen… _Oh!_ You're Azil's older sister, aren't you?"

Astarael shut her book with a snap that would have been far more satisfying if it had been hardback instead of paperback. She then turned, very deliberately, and glared at the idiot. "And _how_, exactly, do you know my sister?"

The young tough quailed at her tone. "I see her around…" he said noncommittally. Astarael suppressed a satisfied smirk. She knew the rumors that were going around about her. That she wasn't stable. That the accident had scrambled her mind. Most people didn't believe that she was sporting her natural hair and eye color, despite the fact that even her eyebrows and eyelashes had turned from dark brown to dark blue with her hair. (Makeup being the obvious explanation) They saw her new look as a form of teen rebellion. And it was, in a way. Why should she have to hide behind cosmetics to conform to some preconceived notion of how she should act? She had to do enough hiding as it was already.

The rumor she found most entertaining was the rumor that she was devil touched or some sort of demon herself. Judging by this kid's reaction, it seemed that that belief had just gained another convert.

"So long as it remains only seeing and you keep yourself and your habits away from my sister," she replied, not looking away.

Some of the kid's self confidence came back. "Who are you, the thought police?"

"I am the person who will turn whatever is left of the gray matter inside your rather empty skull to useless mush if you ever lay a hand on my sister," she replied coldly. "Don't bother trying to figure it out. The rest of your kind are waiting for your return," she added, gesturing to the group of rambunctious, vulgar boys that populated the mid-rear section of the bus a few seats up. Astarael didn't know if he was friends with them or not, but she wanted him out of her eyesight.

The boy turned four shades of red before gathering up his things and stepping rather pointedly on her backpack as he made his exodus. "This isn't over yet, bitch."

"For your sake, I think it should be," she retorted before picking up her book, paging through to find her spot again. In her ire, she had forgotten to fold the page down. Kevin came in right around that time, taking his seat.

"Um, thanks for getting rid of him," he said softly. He was a very short, slender boy who had been several years excelerated in math and science, to the point where he was already taking several college level classes. Between that, his mousy bowl cut hair and glasses, he was a practical bully magnet.

"Please don't. He was bothering me, I scared him off. You don't have to thank me," she said, feeling guilty for not caring more about the boy sitting across from her, friend or not.

"You know, I don't think you've changed nearly as much as people think you have. You're still a good person under the dye and attitude."

"Uh… thanks…" she said, slightly bewildered. That was the most she had ever heard Kevin say at one time. Then Kevin pulled out his own iPod, Astarael found the page in her book where she'd left off, and the bus pulled out much as it always had.

* * *

And much as things always were, the bus dumped her off at the mouth of her development, the second to last stop of the day. As usual, she was alone. Her little sister was at cross country practice, Angelica was getting a ride with whoever she was dating this week, and that freshman kid that lived across the street from her (she thought his name was Sean, but she wasn't sure) was at soccer. A cold wind rushed past her and she rubbed her arms, wishing she'd thought to bring a sweatshirt. She looked up at the sky. The clear morning had vanished; the clouds were dark and promised rain if she was stupid enough to stay out for another twenty minutes. Or maybe less. She wondered if she should call her mother for a lift… but it would only take her about seven minutes to walk to her house. She could manage that. As long as she could get home before it started to rai… 

"Kyree!"

Something large, something that had had wings and black feathers when it had still been alive dove straight at her head. These things were almost as bad as the imported monsters. Corpses of animals, granted new false life and magical abilities. She didn't know where they were coming from, or what was reanimating them, but at least they were usually a lot dumber than the monsters from Kalas's world, and they were almost always alone. Sharwas, on the other hand sometimes attacked in flocks.

"Hell," she said to herself, shucking her backpack and rolling out of the way. The talons of what had probably been a crow raked through the space where her head had been. She pulled her whip out of her purse and dove into the trees, hoping to whatever providence that had saved her life on the day of that accident would keep someone from seeing her. Of course, the mindless creature followed her. Just like she had wanted it to.

She waited, waited until they were about a hundred feet from the road, before she whipped around and managed to score a passing hit on the undead crow. It gave an unnatural scream of pain when the shuriken embedded in the whip gouged it in the side. Astarael cursed inwardly. She had been hoping for a wing.

The creature soared higher, out of range of her weapon, looking for an opening. She needed to nail it before it cleared the treetops…

Nope, there was no avoiding it. She sucked in a deep breath and six wings erupted from her back and the sides of her head, one for each element she commanded, each five feet long. She didn't take to the skies. In the tightly packed wooded area, she couldn't get any altitude to take off, and even if she had, someone would have seen her. She was just hoping that there was no one around to see what she was planning on doing next… **"I am the Light, the dispeller of Darkness! Guardian Spell: Shining Seraph!"**

Bright white light coalesced above the monster, gathering into a shimmering sphere several feet in diameter and slamming down on the corpse bird, bringing it down. She clawed her way through a few thornbushes to investigate. She needed to know that it was dead, there had been several times when she had thought that one of these walking corpses had been dead, only to be attacked by the same one later in the day.

When she got to the clearing that her spell had created, she winced, both at the smell and at the carnage. Her spell had pretty much flattened the dead bird like a pancake, there was no way it was getting up after that, undead or not. Only the head had escaped total annihilation, and the beady black eyes were staring right up at her.

It was then that she was able to recognize what the bird had been. Not a crow, as she had originally thought, but a raven.

Even though she was fairly sure that it meant nothing and she didn't normally believe in such things, she couldn't help but feel like it was a bad omen.

* * *

A girl, probably no older than sixteen, smiled from her vantage point in a nearby tree whose leaves had yet to start turning. She was very, very glad that she had agreed to be a part of this. Manipulating the Guardian was so much fun! 

She tucked a stray strand of honey-yellow hair behind her ear and put away the cell phone, wondering when she would get the go-ahead to release the other footage that she'd taken. Depending on where it went, it would cause a lot of trouble for Miss High-And-Mighty-Sanders. The girl was hoping for a church.

It would be a lot of fun to attend a real, live witch burning.

With similar thoughts and a somewhat empty smile, she pushed off the tree branch. Small, green-black butterfly wings erupted from her back, allowing her to glide through the trees back in the direction of the school. Even though her wingspan of a measly four feet probably shouldn't have been able to keep her from faceplanting on the forest floor, she flew effortlessly and with a fair amount of speed, speed for which she was grateful. After all, practice was probably going to start any minute, and even though she had a 'sprained ankle', she still had to attend. Next time, one of the others was going to have to harass the Guardian. She didn't want to have to deal with another one of Coach Welsh's rants.

* * *

(Giggle) Part of the fun of writing a redux means that I have time to go back and complicate everything. I'm sorry about the gap in updates, but I can't promise it won't happen again. Between school, my job, and applying for colleges, I don't have a lot of spare time anymore. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and I hope you enjoy this chapter too! 


	4. Why we always come back

Phoenixfire: Aaah, the lovely things that come of me being up too late for my own good. I think you'll all find this chapter of the redux rather interesting.

YamiPhoenixfire: We still don't own Baten Kaitos. And if we owned Mountain Dew, that sneaky weasel of an ex-boyfriend wouldn't be extorting money from us for cafeinated beverages, since there would be a special mountain dew truck just for us, that would deliver to the house weekly. And I now own the new Evanescence cd. Rights to their music? Please... (song I used was track twelve, because it fit scarily well with the end of the chapter...)

Chapter Three: Why we always come back

Astarael gave her clothing and backpack one last check before going in. She'd gotten rid of most of the brambles and dusted off most of the dirt. Luckily, today she had worn black instead of something that stains would have been immediately apparent on. She didn't want to have to fabricate some long and complicated story to explain how her clothing had gotten so dirty and stained.

She tried the door handle, only to find that her mother had forgotten to unlock the deadbolt. Odd, she almost always did that before it was time for someone to be using the door. So Astarael wasted a few moments pawing around in the side pockets of her purse before she managed to unearth the painted-golden, second-to-the-bottom-of-the-line key that went into the deadbolt of similar quality, making a vexed sound when she realized that the key had worn a hole in the pocket and that the anti-tearing ward needed to be repaired. And it wasn't the only thing that needed to be repaired: the stupid doorknob was sticking again. Pretty soon, it probably wouldn't be able to shut without the deadbolt at all. At least then they'd have to keep the door locked most of the time.

Before the accident, she had never been bothered by the fact that a ten-year-old with a lockpick could probably break into the house. Hell, half the time the mudroom door was unlocked for Azil (who, for some mysterious reason, refused to put her key in her backpack or purse no matter how many times she got locked out). Not to mention the fact that the sequence for the keypad to all three garage doors was the standard series of ones that had been programmed in by the people that installed it. And the actual door from the garage to the house was broken, could only be closed when the deadbolt was thrown, so the key was left in it at all times. A _five-year-old _could break into their house. Of course, the five-year-old would probably need help to carry away any of the larger, more expensive electrical appliances. But since that fateful November day she had come to realize that life could change in a matter of moments, and no matter how safe their expensive development out in the backwoods of Nowhere, New Jersey seemed to be, they should still take some basic precautions. Some of her family's habits with the keeping of the house were just _stupid._ And whenever she made (very reasonable) suggestions to make the house safer, she either had her head bitten off (Azil, sometimes Rana) or was simply put off with disinterested excuses of "later" (_both _of her parents. They could be lazy enough to shame even her sometimes…)

And, to make matters worse, they were in the fairly sizeable group of people that believed that the monster sightings, both of the walking corpses and the imported monsters from Kalas's world, were just fantasies. It was so frustrating to go out, sometimes multiple times in the same day, to deal with monsters that she had seen or (periodically, she was improving the skill but it was slow going) sensed in the nearby area and come back to hear her family ridicule the latest monster sighting the way they would reports of a UFO or Bigfoot. She supposed that she should be happy that so few people took the threat seriously, if they had, someone would have probably put the appearances of 'a mysterious masked woman' together with times when Astarael Sanders had gone missing. And God help her if anyone ever saw her medical records. Most people weren't aware of exactly how badly she had been hurt, but if that ever got out, it would lend a fair amount of credence to the 'Astarael the Demon' rumors. But still, to have her own family mocking her, even if they didn't realize it…

"Astarael, I need you to come here," her mother's voice called from the family room. Astarael's eyes narrowed at the tone, and she couldn't help but wonder what she had done this time to earn her mother's ire. Surely she still couldn't be mad about her wearing the chains on her pants to school today… that had been hours ago, and she didn't see what the big deal was. It wasn't like people would be able to avoid noticing the extra snaps and buckles and zippers and pockets without the chains. Hell, her _mother _had paid for the damn pants! If she hadn't wanted Astarael to wear them, all she had to do was say 'no' and refuse to buy them!

"Coming," she replied, quickly unbuckling the chains and laying them on the chair with her purse and book. Maybe this was about something else. If it was, there was no point in reminding the woman of lost battles. Allow Deborah Sanders to build up steam, and she could go _on _and _on _and _on_ until you wanted to kill both her and yourself just to make it stop.

Their house was fairly large, from the outside. Really, there weren't that many more rooms than their old house had had, it was just that all the rooms were bigger. Her mother liked big rooms, she was moderately claustrophobic, and Deborah Sanders had had a major hand in picking the design for their house. The family room was no exception, although most of that was the fact that there was no second floor above it, so the room's ceiling was twice the height of all the other rooms in the house. It wasn't all that bigger than an average house. Or maybe it was. Living in the house probably skewed her perception of what an average house should look like. However, the feeling of size was diminished somewhat by all the clutter that had gathered everywhere. Clothing waiting to be ironed, both in baskets and hanging from the ironing board, random blankets carried from couch to couch and never refolded, books for reading pleasure, books for school, flyers, old school notices, old test and quiz papers, old mail, junk mail, bills, newspapers, news magazines, an invitation to a swimming party that had happened in the beginning of summer, a few coffee mugs, a plate, an empty can of Mountain Dew, someone's sandals(probably Azil's), a pair of battered off-white tennis shoes (almost definitely her mother's), dog toys in varying states of having been torn to pieces, Smokey's catnip mouse and the cat bed with the roof and that stupid pink ball hanging from it, and dozens of really odd and random things cluttered the room and the adjoining kitchen, sat on the steps waiting to be returned to a bedroom, and cluttered the ledge between the kitchen and family room. The house was always in varying states of mess, but it looked like they were hitting the bottom of what Astarael had called the Cleanliness Decay, the part right before when her mother ordered her and her sisters to start cleaning things up. However, the chances of her doing that on a weekday were fairly slim, so she had a feeling that…

Yellow eyes narrowed on the piece of paper her mother was holding. It looked almost like junk mail from this distance, with the addresses indecipherable and the lack of stamp. Except for that very unique gray patterning on the bottom half of the side that was facing her, and the almost square shape of the paper.

_Progress Report, _she realized numbly. Progress report. She'd lost track of the weeks since school had started, apparently, in addition to an increasing number of homework assignments. This was not going to be pretty. This was going to be the antithesis of pretty. At least it didn't actually give out letter grades. "Satisfactory Progress" could mean just about anything. A C-, on the other hand, was and could only be a C-, and would not meet her mother's rather exacting standards of what she thought Astarael's grades should be.

"Did you know you are in danger of failing Pre Calculus?" her mother asked icily, eyes narrowing.

Astarael blinked. _In danger of _failing? _How is that possible? Yeah, I blew one quiz, and I missed three or four homework assignments out of, oh, I don't know… _twenty _or _twenty-five_, and I got a C on a major test. How, exactly, does that put me at a D or lower? _"No, I wasn't," she replied, honestly for a change. She'd expected flags for missing homework assignments in all her major classes, she'd been getting very bad about actually doing her homework at home, and somewhere she'd misplaced the 'do it or die' drive that usually helped her complete minor assignments during study hall and lunch, but she hadn't expected to be in actual danger of _failing_ any of her classes. _Oh no, with college just around the corner this is going to be a truly classic rant._

Not that she knew if she actually wanted to even _go _to college yet. She'd been trying very hard not to think about it. It only underscored exactly how much time she'd lost.

"Astra, your efforts to graduate with the rest of your class are going to look very good on your application, but only if you can actually pass all your courses. I don't understand this. I thought we were past all this, honey. You've been doing so well for the last year. Maybe… maybe we should talk to Dr. Hilander…"

"No more meds," Astarael said coolly, as coolly as she dared with her mother, who was probably currently considering grounding her. She wasn't going back on her medication though, not for a learning disorder she wasn't entirely convinced she'd had in the first place. Not with her magic, or her healing abilities. God only knew what that crap would do to her now, or if it would even work at all. No more. She wasn't a broken doll that her mother could fix with a couple of pills and three visits a year to a shrink. Her problem had really been lack of motivation all along, and she was starting to lose sight of her goal with all the monster attacks to distract her. That was all. There wasn't a medicine in the world that could fix that.

Despite her efforts to be polite, her mother's eyes narrowed dangerously anyway. "I don't like that tone, Astra. All I was doing was suggesting something that might help you, there's no need to be fresh with me. You're also missing work in Biology. Do you know what that's about?"

Astarael winced. That was the lab that she had missed last week when she had had to duck out of class because of a headache caused by exhaustion and overuse of her magic. Luckily for her, since she had been at the nurse and not clearing out a monster, she had a chance to make that up. She wasn't about to tell her mother about that one, though. Bad enough that the woman wanted to put her back on Ritalin; she didn't want to be on some unneeded migraine medicine too. "I don't know. I'll check with my teacher." She could have that lab made up by the end of the week, and could make up something about a missed homework assignment, something convincing.

Deborah Sanders raised her eyebrows, not believing the rather pathetic lie. "You don't _know? _How can you not _know?_ Tell me Astarael Victoria Sanders, what are you missing?"

_I should probably 'fess up, _Astarael thought to herself as, "I really don't remember!" came out of her mouth. It was an effort to keep her face straight after saying that, the urge to wince was fairly strong. She didn't know why she had always had a compulsive urge to lie to her mother, it just happened, about everything from whether or not dinner was good (it was, most of the time, but she didn't like _everything _her mother cooked) to things like this. What her mother wanted to hear usually came out of her mouth before her conscious mind had a chance to catch up, unless she was angry enough to set something on fire. She just couldn't help herself.

Deborah Sanders had clearly detected another lie, for her complexion was starting to redden as she opened her mouth…

And the telephone rang. Grateful for the distraction, however momentary, Astarael dashed over to get the phone.

"Hello?" she said, hoping for someone that wasn't a telemarketer.

"Astra?" Rana's voice came from the other side of the line. "I need to talk to Mom. It's pretty important."

"Sure," Astarael replied, handing the phone to her mother with a quick, "It's Rana," before contemplating her options. Clearly the only class she had less than a C in was Pre Calc, or her mother would have said something else before moving on to missing assignments. So this wasn't as bad as it could have been. All she needed to do was apply herself, pull her grades up before the end of the markingperiod. She could do it. She'd done it before.

Of course, before, it had seemed a lot more important to get those grades. Now, all she could bring herself to care about was getting out of the house, away from her mother…

"Rana's volleyball game got canceled, so I need to go pick her up," Deborah said irritably. "This conversation isn't over yet."

And with that, she walked out.

"How was your day, Astarael? Did you do anything interesting? How are Selih and your other friends doing?" Astarael asked the ceiling. A yip from near the garage door startled her. Sabrina hadn't had her walk yet. "Sorry, girl. Wanna go outside and run down some deer?"

The mix breed brown spaniel gave an eager bark in reply, and Astarael managed something that resembled a grin. At least _someone _was happy to see that she was home.

* * *

"You're almost late again, Cat," commented a dark-haired junior as the blonde touched down behind the school. She was long-legged and lean, like most of the cross-country team, and also strikingly pretty. She was one of the only upper classmen involved in their little scheme, and not nearly as snobby as most of the rest of the varsity. She made an interesting contrast to the very slim, very blonde girl of middling height who had just touched down, Cat knew that she looked more like cheerleading squad material than someone who ran cross country. She certainly acted like it, most of the time. It was a fairly good cover. "Coach Welsh is going to eat you alive," the older girl added.

"What?" Cat (Her full name was Catherine, but she almost never used it. She hated it, as a matter of fact. Why her parents had stuck her with such a lousy name, she'd never guess. After all, she was anything but _pure._) asked indignantly. "I have a perfectly reasonable excuse," she added, sheathing her Wings of the Heart and picking up her crutches, gesturing with them pointedly. "Besides, you're going to be late too."

"I'm in extra help. For AP Psych," the girl replied with a mischievous grin. "Coach Welsh may not like it, but I have a pass. My teacher _forgot_ to fill in the time, so I could come five minutes before practice ended and still have an excuse. You, on the other hand…"

Cat winced. The upper classman, Vana, had a tenancy to abuse her unique gift, the ability to mess with people's memories. Cat just hoped that no one caught her at it, but it was doubtful they would. Vana was careful to her core, and always covered herself thoroughly. "Whatever. The more time we spend here talking, the later we're going to be. Let's just get to practice already."

"Fine by me," Vana replied with a flip of that naturally straight, beautiful black hair that Cat had always secretly envied. They only paused for a moment as Cat strapped on the ankle brace for her supposed injury and then dashed (or, in Cat's case, hobbled. She could run, but that would mean risking exposure) off towards the practice area.

* * *

Astarael lay sprawled on her bed, staring at the off-white ceiling and letting the bittersweet music that she favored now wash over her like a flood, hearing without really listening, temporarily erasing the empty void left behind by her argument with her mother. She'd exploded at the woman, and the fight had degenerated into a screaming match, something she usually made a great deal of effort to avoid, because when her mother was happy with her, she didn't pry. But she'd just been so _tired _of the constant picking that she hadn't been able to stop herself from snapping back. Normally she'd feel just a little better for having defended herself, but now she just felt... drained.

_So sick to death of living here… dealing with the monotony of everyday life… little vanilla people scrabbling around the vanilla maze, so few of them realizing that there's no way to the center, and no way out…_

She blinked. That had been… well, bleak. Even for her.

Not for the first time, she seriously wondered if she needed… well, help. Real help. And not for the first time, she snorted at her own stupidity. She couldn't talk to anyone about what was wrong with her, because if she did they'd lock her up for the rest of her natural life, or put her on medicine that she probably didn't need.

She was _done_ with medication, and _done _with cages. She'd had it.

Numbly, she rolled over and looked down on the battered purple and black backpack that she'd had since fifth grade with an expression that was somehow both nostalgic and bitter. She had homework, a fairly large chunk of translations to do for Latin, reading for English, math problems and a test to study for tomorrow in Biology, but she just couldn't bring herself to get up and do anything about it. She was tired. How long had it been since she'd been able to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch without being awoken by some horror, born of either her past or her fears for the future?

_All that I'm living for/all that I'm dying for/all that I can't ignore alone at night…_

And now her mother was hedging her in with more restrictions. She'd already torn through the room like a malevolent cyclone tearing up the cable chord for the television, the internet connection, the video game controllers. It wasn't just that her mother had taken things from her room, it was that she had violated the one place in the house that Astarael had always felt was _hers,_ the place where she retreated to and allowed life to recede for a while as she tried to recover from the day.

_I can feel the night beginning/separate me from the living/understanding me…_

Was it really too much to ask to have one place that she could go to be alone? Didn't she deserve a little privacy? Was it really so hard for her mother to just _trust her?_ She had everything under control! Well, as close to control as she could manage. So, she had some more important things in her life than getting _every single piece of homework_ done. So she'd failed _one _quiz because she'd been too tired to crunch numbers properly… There were more important things than the cosine of the triangle in problem number six!

_After all I've seen/piecing every thought together/ find the words to make me better…_

A gaping yawn scattered her line of thought, and she blinked blearily, turning to the clock. After a moment of struggling with her memory of what the hands were supposed to represent, she came up with 4:45 pm. There was at least an hour before dinner, maybe two. It wouldn't kill her to take a nap. Just a little unbroken sleep. She could sort through her own emotions after a bit of rest…

_If I only knew how to pull myself apart…_

Even as she reached out to set the alarm her golden eyes slid shut. A hand with the willowy but strong fingers of a pianist blemished only by the faint tracings of tiny scars from fights and taking care of her own weapon fell short of the softly humming white object, first hitting the nightstand, then falling limply against the bed. The rain that had been threatening to fall most of the day burst forth in abundance, but the girl barely twitched.

* * *

All that I'm living for/All that I'm dying for/All that I can't ignore alone at night…

_She blinked. She knew, on some level, that she was dreaming again, and cursed the ill luck that had taken her into sleep before she could turn off that damn CD. But that thought was brief before the dream enveloped her._

All that I'm wanted for/although I wanted more/lock the last open door-

_She was standing in a twisted, tainted mockery of the church she had attended almost since before she could walk. But what had been white was now black, the stained glass windows that had shown fields and flowers and fruit now gaped emptily into the darkness. The columns, which she had always thought to be more ornamental than supportive were blasted by fire and… defiled by carvings that she recognized but didn't understand, glyphs from the walls of Cor Hydrae.. And front and center, where the choir sat, stood… figures. Seven in all._

My ghosts are gaining on me…

_Strain though she might, she could only make out a few words from the back of the sanctuary, and something told her that if she moved any closer, she would be discovered. The word "Guardian' was coming up far too often for her comfort. If only she dared move closer… just a few steps forward, and she might be able to make out something else._

I believe that dreams are sacred/take my darkest fears and play them/like a lullaby/like a reason why…

"_Why all the subterfuge?" a feminine voice rang out clearly, rich with mocking contempt, a voice that she knew she should have recognized but, infuriatingly, couldn't place. "Because a quick kill is too… _clean_… for a woman arrogant enough to stand in defiance of the gods. If not for her interference, if not for Astarael's refusal to let nature run its course and claim her life, we would not be here. This time, I mean to erase her beyond anyone's meddling interference."_

…like a play of my obsessions/make me understand the lesson…

"_With all due respect, don't you think you're becoming a bit… fixated?" put forth one of the number hesitantly, this one also female, and although less familiar than the first clear voice, still easily recognizable… if only she could tie it to a face and a name… "We almost have enough energies to summon the stronghold into our own dimension. If you squander too many of the troops and corpse-gatherers that should be supplying us with the life energy to complete that task on baiting that fledgling spirit sorceress…"_

…so I'll find myself…

"_I, too, was once a mere fledgling of the same discipline as Astarael, and look at the heights I have risen to. I will not allow Astarael even the inkling of a chance to come into similar power. And you cannot deny that she has the potential… in fact, have any of you noticed anything different about this meeting, my sisters?" Seven hoods that swallowed the faces within turned towards her. Only their eyes were visible. And every one of them had bright red eyes that glowed like hot embers…_

…so I won't be lost again…

…_eyes just like Melodia's when she had been possessed by Malpercio…

* * *

_

Astarael awoke with a spluttering scream, slamming her hand down on the alarm clock more out of habit than anything else. She scooped it up and dragged it into her lap. According to the ugly little white box, she'd been asleep for less than three minutes.

…_my ghosts are gaining on me…_

With a groan, she dragged herself out of her bed and staggered into the sitting room to shut off her boom box. The last thing she needed right now was sleep, or more Evanescence. No, the first thing she was going to have to do was have a debate with herself about how much of that dream had been nerves, and how much of it had been a warning. And, even if it was all warning, how much it was going to help her.

She really, really missed being able to sleep for an extended period of time.

* * *

Come on, you know you like this version better... :)


	5. Warnings of Pain

Phoenixfire: Yeah, the redux updated again. Please try not to die of shock.

YamiPhoenixfire: We still don't own Mountain Dew (pretty sure it got refrenced in this chapter somewhere... almost always does...) or Baten Kaitos. We do own the plot concept for this story. Do not borrow without permission.

and for the love of god, if you're still reading, REVIEW!

Phoenixfire: And, on a personal note, if you can write good Baten Kaitos fanfic... update. (indicates the shiny new chapter) See? If I can do it, you can too! (Iname, Holy Spork, this may or may not be directed at you) Let's all update, and maybe collective support will help our prayers to the inspiration gods be answered.

* * *

Chapter Four: Warnings of Pain 

Astarael picked at the spaghetti in front of her. It was almost literally drowning in tomato sauce, which her mother knew she hated. _What a petty revenge_, she thought to herself as she pushed a chunk of sausage around her plate. _What is she, a teenager? This is something I would expect from Azil or Rana… aren't you supposed to have more dignity once you're nearly sixty?_

Said woman glared at her. "I expect you to eat every bite of that, young lady."

"Uh-huh." _And how, pray tell, do you plan to enforce that when you're leaving in three minutes?_

"I mean it, Astarael!"

"I know you do, Mom." _Why do you give commands that you _know _will be disobeyed the moment your back is turned? _She wondered as she scraped sauce off the sausage chunk. If she could get rid of most of it, the sausage would actually be edible. The natural spices would be strong enough to overpower the sauce, making it safe to eat. The spaghetti, on the other hand, would make her sick if she tried to eat it. She knew this from painful experience. There was just something about warm tomato paste that made her stomach churn.

"I'll be checking the garbage can when I get home."

"I know." _Beh. All I have to do is change the garbage… or, if I'm really desperate, go off into the woods far enough off the path and toss it. You have no imagination._

"Well… I'm off to bowling night. Be good."

"Yes, Mom," came the three-part chorus. Even though they weren't being lectured at the moment, her sisters were as grateful to see their mother's back as she was. They all knew that their mother could easily change targets without warning.

They only waited long enough for her car to drive out of sight of the house before dumping their milk down the sink and refurbishing themselves with whatever beverages (or, in Astarael's case, foods) they wished to consume. She pulled some warmable Mexican microwave food out of a box, tossed it onto a plate and put it in the microwave for a minute. She then looked at her bowl of tomato goop, considered her mother's vindictive mood, picked up the plate and headed for the door.

"You're going to toss that into the woods."

"I'd rather not have another confrontation at ten o'clock tonight," she replied, ignoring the incredulous look that Azil was shooting at her back. "Do you remember the hell she gave you three weeks ago over the bananas you were throwing away? How she actually went through the trash and pulled them all out? And she made _me _get rid of them. They _reeked_, Azil."

Said teen rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she replied in a mix of boredom and contempt before heading off to her room with an entire bag of chips. Astarael darted outside, grateful for the lull in the storm. This way she would only get a little damp instead of soaked. _Now, what to think about recent events?_

The dream. It had been more than a dream. It _felt _like more than a dream. But even if it was, what could she do about it, really? Look for people with glowing red eyes? Please. Things like that would stand out here even more than in Kalas's world. If they _did _have eerie eyes, they'd be hiding them somehow...

_But that doesn't mean that I can't look for strange stuff, things that are out of place, lies that don't fit or shouldn't need to be told, _she thought to herself as she slung her bowl of red goop into the bushes. Luckily, the fallen leaves meant that it didn't stand out as much as it normally would have. Some forest animal was going to have an exceptionally good meal tonight._ Like, all the sorts of things that _I'm _trying to hide, _she thought to herself as she headed back inside, trying not to feel too silly carrying around an empty plate and hoping none of the neighbors were out and around to ask awkward and unanserable questions._ Well, now isn't _this _going to be fun. As if I didn't have enough to worry about..._

"What a jerk. When did Azil get to be so mean?" Rana wondered aloud as Astarael came back in, slurping up another mouthful of spaghetti.

"You're asking _me?_ I'm the one who took the two year vacation, remember?"

Rana shot her a mild glare. "That was… one of those questions that other people aren't supposed to answer…"

"Rhetorical?"

"Yeah. That. Thank you for being the living dictionary."

"You know, if you read more, you wouldn't need to rely on me so much for vocabulary."

"But you're here… and convenient… and I don't have time for reading, with volleyball and school and drama club in the spring."

Astarael sighed, not bothering to point out that she wouldn't be around next year. Hopefully. Before she was called upon to make a reply, thankfully, the phone rang and she picked it up.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Astra?" came the distant reply.

"Oh! Kelila! You're back from Africa?"

"Kelila's back?" asked Rana. Kelila was their eldest sister, from their mother's first marriage. She was just over ten years older than Astarael (having been born in April instead of March), and she did humanitarian aide work for the United Nations, almost exclusively overseas. Hence, they only saw her slightly more than they had as small children (which had been never, since Kelila's father had won sole custody in the extended court battle and promptly moved his new family down to Florida, where he gleefully sabotaged any and all attempts at communication between them.)

"Been back for a month!" she said cheerily. "But I've been busy. You know, with work and all. I _did _email Mom several times, but…"

"Oh Kel, you know that's a waste of energy. She's the next best thing to technologically illiterate. Last time I checked her inbox, there were nearly _six hundred _unread emails in there. You would have been better off writing out a letter and mailing it to her. She would have at least gotten it that way."

A sigh from the end of the line. "Why is she so stubborn?"

"No clue. I blame…"… _your father… _"…menopause. She's been almost impossible to live with ever since we moved into this neighborhood. So," she continued, desperate to change the subject before she said something unforgivably stupid, "Is there a reason you called up, or did you just want to chat?"

"Actually, I have a week off coming up. I was thinking of dropping by to visit you for a couple days on my way to see Suzume. Is Mom around? I want to clear it with her."

"No she isn't. She's always out on Mondays to bowl. Didn't she do that when you were a kid?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think she was still bowling after all this time. Is she still in the same league?"

"Yup. Even though she has to drive an hour and a half to get there now. I don't think she'll ever stop bowling."

"Okay, I'll call back tomorrow…"

"Hang on, Rana wants to talk to you. See you soon?"

"Oh, absolutely."

Astarael lowered the phone and turned back to face Rana's puppy dog eyed gaze head on. "Feel free to talk now," she said handing over the phone.

"Thanks!" she said, grabbing the phone the way their dog Sabrina snatched up a dog biscut., accidentally grazing Astarael's hand with her fingernails when doing so. Rana didn't apologize, but Astarael didn't mind that much. She hadn't done it intentionally, and by the time she had crossed the kitchen to retrieve her dinner, the shallow scratches had already disappeared.

* * *

A man with brilliantly blue hair leaned indolently against the wall of the west branch of Institute of Magic, his glazed blue eyes showing that his level of consciousness had deteriorated to a borderline catatonic level. Xelha was still inside searching the school's many books for answers to their question, but he'd had it. Unfortunately for him, he knew from sad experience that he wouldn't be able to pry her out of there with any lever (or even a crowbar, whatever that was. Astarael had just called it 'a pole you use to pry things apart', she hadn't bothered giving a description that made any sense) until either she found an answer, a place to look for more answers (he could already tell that they wouldn't be finding any here…) or Mizuti showed up to (hopefully) shed some light on their problem. It was already late afternoon, and it didn't look like any of those things would be happening today. The thought of spending yet another day going through the same books made him want to fall asleep on the spot, but what worried him almost enough to jerk him out of his stupor was the increasingly strong possibility that Xelha would insist on moving to the Ancient Library if they couldn't find and answer here by the end of the week. 

The Ancient Library. Five, no, TEN times as many books. And no convenient inn to sleep in at night… a ready made excuse to research to all hours…

_At least there'll be skeletons and monster books to fight, _Kalas tried to console himself. The thought wasn't nearly as comforting as it should have been.

He yawned widely, then shook himself, the first real, conscious movement he'd made in several hours. He was NOT going to fall asleep out here, in the open, just begging for anyone to come up and mug him while he slept. Sure, the war was over, but that was no… excuse to…

* * *

_Plasma bullets tore through a sizeable crowd of people and the rather large room degenerated into mass chaos as men and women… no, boys and girls, even the oldest only adults by the barest margin of years and experience… mobbed the exits in mass panic._

"_Attention students and teachers, there is a Code C Level One situation in the building," a masculine voice announced from a location that Kalas couldn't identify. "All teachers should be sure to strictly enforce procedure, and _everyone _should remember not to panic."_

_Kalas snorted. The very first thing most people did when they were told not to panic was to panic. It was basic human nature._

"_Little freaking late, isn't it?" someone shouted from the crowd near enough to Kalas that he was actually able to pick it out over the wails of terror. If any hysterical laughter followed the jibe, the sound was drowned out by the sheer level of noise two hundred people could produce when crammed into a room too filled with tables and chairs to allow freedom of movement and a madman gleefully mowing them down with an Alfard-issue weapon of some variety._

"_Run little brats! You can't escape me!" cackled a familiar voice. A boy jumped a table to try and maneuver around the people between him and the door and was cut down with pinpoint accuracy and more sadistic laughter._

_He turned. A masked figure in blue and black was hovering over the crowd, her head bumping the ceiling periodically as her rocket-propelled golden boots worked diligently to keep her aloft._

"_Ayme," he snarled. The part of him that commented that this was a little sadistic even for _her _was quickly and ruthlessly silenced. He drew a magnus, and…_

"_Your battle is with me, sniper!" shouted a woman as she leapt onto a table at the far end of the room, drawing a whip embedded with metal shards. She was wearing a white shirt whose sleeves cut off just below the shoulder with a pattern of skulls, roses, and vines on the left side of her chest that clung to her almost as tightly as Savyna's bodysuit, a black pleated skirt and black boots. Her blue and brown hair had been done in some complicated design that involved two thick braids hanging down her sides and the rest caught up in a mass of tiny braids threaded with tiny silver and rosy beads, held in place by a red-lacquered clip._

"_Stupid of you to announce yourself, Spirit child," Ayme sneered, firing a hail of bullets at her. The woman vaulted headfirst to the nearest table, dodging the killing rain and landing neatly in a roll. The circular table teetered dangerously at the uneven weight and she quickly shot a leg out backwards to the other side of the table and shifted her weight awkwardly to center her gravity. Reluctantly, the table steadied._

"_Poor little Guardian maiden, so very, very weak in the flesh. What's wrong?" she asked as she fired a bullet at her cornered prey. The girl managed to twist to the side enough that the bullet that would have gone through her shoulder only grazed her upper arm. "Not enough room to move?"_

_The girl's response was to flail clumsily with her weapon, scoring a deep cut in Ayme's cheek before she could jerk out of the way. "Same goes for you," came the infuriated reply…_

"…up, Kalas!"

He started awake at the sound of the familiar voice, which was a mistake. His head hit the rock wall that he'd fallen asleep leaning against, sending a sharp jolt of pain through his skull. "Ow…" he muttered, his head falling forward again as he cradled it in his hand.

"I'm sorry Kalas! I wasn't thinking! Here, let me see that," Xelha offered.

"No, no, I'm just fine," he said, waving a hand to ward off whatever healing magnus she wanted to shove down his throat as he looked around. The last sunlight was fading from the streets of Komo Mai, it was time to go back to the inn for dinner. "It's my fault for falling asleep in such a stupid place."

"Are you sure you're okay? You look worried about something…"

"I just had a really weird dream," he said dismissively.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really. I can't even remember most of it," he lied with practiced ease. Xelha shot him a suspicious look anyway. She knew him too well.

"If you say so…" she muttered, letting it drop. He had to stifle a sigh of relief as she turned away.

It wasn't that he didn't want to tell her about the dream, or that he thought she'd be mad for some weird reason that only another girl would understand, it was just that he thought she had enough to worry about with their current problem. Besides, like he'd told her, it was so utterly, impossibly strange that he couldn't possibly take it seriously. Ayme? Wreaking random, pointless havoc in Astarael's world? Much as he disliked the magenta-haired woman (evil, sadistic, honorless, cold-hearted, Malpercio-tainted murdering…), even he had to admit that such senseless violence was out of character. As far as he knew, she was still working for Alfard, and the current Alfard didn't have any interest in someplace as far away an unobtainable as Astarael's world, especially not when there was so much empty, unclaimed land now that the continents had settled. He hadn't heard one word about either her or Folon, and to be perfectly honest, he couldn't care less. He'd lost his taste for revenge after having watched Giacomo die in front of him.

At least, he thought he had. He honestly wasn't sure what he'd do if confronted with either of the Imperial assassins again. And he didn't want to find out. One destructive vengeance quest was more than enough for him for one lifetime.

_Astarael._

She'd looked exhausted, his Guardian. She'd lost weight on returning to her own world, and her yellow eyes were shadowed by circles so dark it looked like she hadn't slept in ages… or like someone had given her two black eyes. She wasn't taking care of herself, that much was readily apparent.

Why? Why would she abuse the life that she'd fought so hard to win back...?

_Just a dream, _he told himself firmly. _It's just a dream, brought on by a combination of your own hope that she managed to make it home in one piece and your worries over the current problem._

He really did hope that Astarael was okay. He knew she'd been in an accident in her own world before her spirit had wandered to his, and injured badly enough that her soul had been expelled from her body. He hoped that she had been merely injured, not killed. She deserved a little peace and happiness after the hell he'd put her through…

_And if she was here right now, she'd probably give you a nice long lecture on how much of an idiot you're being, worrying about things you can't change. And then she'd sing. _He shuddered in remembered horror. Her own voice was actually rather pleasant, and since she was nothing _but _a voice in his world, she could mimic other people's perfectly, and sometimes she'd let him listen to a few of her favorite songs as they were sung when she'd first heard them. But she also had a seemingly neverending store of the most annoying songs ever thought up by man, some with built in infinite loops that she could sing for several hours if he really pissed her off. _Yeah, she'd probably treat you to a few rounds of 'this is the song that never ends'. And you'd deserve it. Idiot.

* * *

_

She crawled into bed around eleven thirty, feeling as restless as the thunderstorm outside. She knew she wouldn't be able to fall asleep for hours yet, but it was horrible weather for flying, her homework was nearly finished, for a change, and she felt oddly disenchanted with her handheld videogames. Sleep, however, was something she needed.

Maybe there was some sort of pill or something that could get rid of her dreams…

_No. No medication ever again! Last time ended with that really, seriously scary bout of depression. Lucky you that you managed to figure out what was causing it before you slipped into suicidal areas. Think you'll be so lucky next time it happens? And let's not forget the fact that you're not entirely human anymore… humans don't get up again after having their necks broken and their heads smashed into asphalt. They don't even go into comas for years. They _die,_ Astarael. Or they're quadriplegic and brain-dead for as long as the doctors can keep their empty, worthless husks breathing. They don't rise again to live even semi-normal lives._

_So, why are you having this conversation with yourself?_

She moaned and dragged a hand over her eyes, trying to blot out the murky light from the houses that surrounded theirs on three sides and the periodic flashes of lightning. "How am I supposed to get to sleep now?" she moaned at the ceiling.

* * *

(AN: My sisters and I actually _did _throw food into the woods behind our house once, but it was baked potatoes, not spaghetti. And my mom did check paper napkins in the trash can for bananas that met an ignoble end, but she didn't actually save them for evidence (Thank you, God)) 


End file.
